Authors

Title

Publication Date

Winter 1-1-2016

Journal

MLN

Volume

131

Issue

1

First Page

270

Last Page

289

Abstract

In Garrone’s film, Reality, the protagonist Luciano Ciotola becomes obsessed with his participation in the reality TV show Big Brother to the point that his whole life turns into a spectacle. In Italian cinema studies no other scholar had yet analyzed this film, despite its success and the very engaging and up-to-date topic. In my article, at the diegetic level, I show that the spectator experiences an overlap and a (con)fusion between Luciano’s everyday reality and his life as a member of the reality TV show. However, keeping in mind Guy Debord’s seminal work The Society of the Spectacle and a number of Italian and American films on the relationship between reality and fiction, my study aims to demonstrate that, primarily through formal distancing techniques (camera movements and crane shots) and the use of music score, the film ultimately conveys the possibility of distinguishing reality from fiction. Such an approach provides an alternative conclusion to a postmodern analysis of the film.